


six feet under water, i do (look up to you)

by revanchxst (BadWolfGirl01)



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends: Knights of the Old Republic (Video Games)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Established Relationship, F/M, Heavy Angst, Pre-Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, Tragedy, Unhappy Ending, Unhealthy Relationships, WHY IS REVALEK SO TRAGIC I'M SOBBING, i blame linkin park for this, i mean. sort of death, it's Revan, minutes to midnight was my soundtrack for writing this stupid fic, name and mask symbolism galore, she's not actually dead everyone knows that, the Betrayal scene tm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-01
Updated: 2021-02-01
Packaged: 2021-03-12 20:27:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,139
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29141502
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BadWolfGirl01/pseuds/revanchxst
Summary: Malak loves Revan, has loved her since they were children, has been in love with her since they were teenagers driving a stolen speeder across Coruscant, but somewhere between Malachor and Vitiate, between the Star Forge and the Sith Academy, it’s no longer enough, to love her. The resentment has been building like a poison since she named herself his master and no matter what she does, no matter what he does, there’s no way to bleed that poison away, because somewhere in the last seven years of war, the Revan he loves has vanished behind the mask and the title and he doesn’t know how to get her back. He no longer knows if he even wants to get her back.He’s spent his entire life in her shadow, second-best, only ever an afterthought to the rest of the galaxy. He wants more, and he’ll never get it as long as she’s alive.[or: Malak's betrayal.]
Relationships: Alek | Darth Malak & Female Revan, Alek | Darth Malak/Female Revan
Comments: 6
Kudos: 19





	six feet under water, i do (look up to you)

**Author's Note:**

> _Don't wanna reach for me, do you?_   
>  _I mean nothing to you_   
>  _The little things give you away_
> 
> _But now there will be no mistaking_   
>  _The levees are breaking_
> 
> _All you've ever wanted_   
>  _Was someone to truly look up to you_   
>  _And six feet under water_   
>  _I do_
> 
> _All you've ever wanted_   
>  _Was someone to truly look up to you_   
>  _And six feet under ground now I—_   
>  _Now I do_
> 
> \- "the little things give you away," Linkin Park

_ They’re small, nine or ten maybe, running through knee-high grass on Dantooine, surrounded by the rustling of the wind and the mournful baying of kath hounds and the bright sound of laughter. Vrook had kept them late after class again, to scold them for climbing onto the roof of the Enclave, had assigned them both extra chores and extra meditation, and Revan has been sulking ever since, which Alek understands. Vrook doesn’t like him, sure, because he lives in Revan’s shadow, but he  _ hates _ Revan, is always finding something wrong with her to get angry at her for. _

_ Some day, Alek will find a way to make Vrook eat all his words, to make him  _ feel _ everything he’s made Revan feel since she was five and they were sneaking out of the creche together. But for now, he has to be content with following Revan as she sprints out into a wide space between two cliffs and stops, flops down on her back and stares up at the sky. _

_ “I hate him, Squint,” she says forlornly, and there’s not much of her usual anger in her voice today. _

_ “I know,” Alek says, dropping down to sit next to her. Bits of dark hair are starting to slip out of her neat box braids - she’ll need to redo them soon - and she’s closed her green eyes, and there’s a furrow in her forehead he doesn’t like. He doesn’t like seeing her upset, wishes they could just spend all their days here on the plains, where none of the masters can look at them, where there’s no meditation and no chores and no scoldings, where Revan is happy. “We’ll get him back for it someday, you know.” _

_ “Of course we will,” Revan says, turns her head towards him and opens her eyes. “I’m going to be the best Jedi they’ve ever seen, and even Vrook will have to say it. I’ll prove to him that I deserve this.” _

_ Alek grins down at her, reaches over with one hand to tap her nose, and she wrinkles her face at him. “If you’re the best, what does that make me?” he asks, as she brings up a hand to swat at his before tangling their fingers together. _

_ “Second-best, obviously,” she informs him, and he grins wider. “I’m going to change the whole galaxy someday, and you’re going to be right next to me, aren’t you?” _

_ “Is that even a question?” Alek asks, squeezes her hand, and he wishes he could just live forever in the warmth of this moment. “Don’t be  _ stupid, _ Rev, I’m always going to be with you. I promise.” _

_ Revan sits up, a bright smile crossing her face. “I promise too,” she says. “No matter what happens, we’re always going to be together. Nothing could ever change that.” _

Malak stares down at his hands, flexing them, like he could chase away the shadow of Revan’s small hand in his, the way her fingers had tightened around his when she promised, so solemnly despite the smile, that they’d always be together.  _ Nothing could ever change that, _ she’d said, and he’d believed her, back then. 

Oh, the perspective twenty years and two wars brings.

He hasn’t seen Revan’s face outside of dreams in two months, since the last time he’d been on the  _ Vengeance _ and they’d curled up together on her bunk, and even then she’d buried her face in his shoulder like she didn’t want him to see it, and the mask had been so close at hand. She stopped letting him see her face around the time he asked for his own command.

And maybe that’s his fault, but she can’t expect him to sit in her shadow forever, can she? She’s the one who named him Darth, who named him her apprentice, and it is the Sith way for the apprentice to eventually succeed the master. And it hasn’t been so long that he’s forgotten the way her lightsaber came crashing at his face, the way she would’ve cleaved straight through his jaw, all because of her anger, all because he couldn’t  _ follow her orders. _ Once upon a time, she’d trusted him to make his own decisions, to the point where anything and everything he said was considered her own words.

Somehow, their empire still sees him like that, like nothing more than Revan’s right hand, Revan’s mouthpiece, Revan’s shadow, despite the fact that he hasn’t let her past the surface of his mind in a year and despite the fact that he has his own flagship and despite the fact that Saul Karath asked to be stationed with him instead of her. (He knows why; the man wants power, follows those he believes will give it to him, and he expects Malak to move, just like Bandon does, just like most of the Sith do. To them, it’s an inevitability.)

He doesn’t  _ need _ Revan, not really. She’s always been the one who needed him, who was desperate for him to be her absolution and her forgiveness and her redemption, when he could barely wash his own hands of the blood he’d spilled, for the Republic and for her. They’d clung to each other in the dark and he’d promised her it was  _ necessary, _ just like she promised herself, and at some point he’d stopped waiting for her to try and reassure  _ him. _

So he’s never needed her, and he could do this on his own - could conquer the Republic, could lead an empire, could defend the galaxy against Vitiate.

Malak loves Revan, has loved her since they were children, has been  _ in love _ with her since they were teenagers driving a stolen speeder across Coruscant, but somewhere between Malachor and Vitiate, between the Star Forge and the Sith Academy, it’s no longer  _ enough, _ to love her. The resentment has been building like a poison since she named herself his master and no matter what she does, no matter what  _ he _ does, there’s no way to bleed that poison away, because somewhere in the last seven years of war, the Revan he loves has vanished behind the mask and the title and he doesn’t know how to get her back. He no longer knows if he even  _ wants _ to get her back.

He’s spent his entire life in her shadow, second-best, only ever an afterthought to the rest of the galaxy. He wants  _ more, _ and he’ll never get it as long as she’s alive.

His comm chirps.  _ “Lord Malak,” _ and it’s one of his officers,  _ “you’re needed on the bridge. A Republic fleet just came out of hyperspace,” _ and as if to punctuate their words, the  _ Leviathan _ rocks around him.

He’s already pushing to his feet, grabbing the cortosis-weave half-mask he started wearing when they went back to war. “I’m on my way,” he says. “Get Karath onto the bridge.”

_ “Understood, sir,” _ the officer says, and the line goes dead. Malak settles his black cape around his shoulders and leaves his room behind for the nearest turbolift to the bridge.

The Republic fleet shouldn’t be here. They don’t have the forces to challenge Revan directly, that much has been obvious from the start - they’d only had a year to recover from Malachor, and when he and Revan came back to the galaxy half the Republic had defected to follow them. Revan is their hero, of course, their savior, their legend, why wouldn’t they follow her? But it means that they don’t have the manpower or the ships for head-on battles, so what could they hope to accomplish here?

By the end of the Mandalorian Wars, Revan had been three quarters of the Republic’s fleet on her own, had with his help held together the entire war with her fingertips and her durasteel  _ determination, _ her refusal to fail, to lose. Without her, the Republic hadn’t known what to do, hadn’t known how to defend themselves against a threat, because she’d won them the last war entirely on her own and after Malachor they’d never thought they’d have to fight without her. Never thought they’d have to fight  _ her. _

It’s been all they’ve been able to manage to just try and defend against her, to try and buy time. They haven’t attempted to launch an  _ attack _ before - it’s suicidal, they’d lose too many ships and too much manpower and they’d barely scratch the surface of Revan’s fleet. And sure, he’s heard whispers from his informants in the Republic about the Jedi joining the war, about a padawan with battle meditation, but that’s not enough to balance the cost this attack will take. The  _ size _ of the fleet they’ve got arrayed against him and Revan - Malak looks over the projection his officers already have up on the holotable the moment he steps onto the bridge. This is most of their fleet. They’re risking nearly everything on an attack within striking distance of a planet Revan and Malak have already conquered, and for what? They aren’t going to  _ win. _ What could possibly make this worth it?

Unless-

Oh.  _ Oh. _

It’s a trap, of course.

Revan will have seen it too, probably before he did - she’s the master tactician, after all - he’s sure she’ll laugh at it with him later, laugh at the  _ audacity _ of the Republic and the Jedi, to think they could set a trap for  _ her. _ If they play this right, they could destroy or otherwise incapacitate two thirds of the Republic fleet in one battle, leaving them a nearly-straight shot to Coruscant, winning them the entire galaxy in just months. And then what?

Revan will be the most powerful woman in the galaxy, and he will be her right hand - her shadow once again. They’ll rebuild and turn the full might of the conquered Republic on Vitiate and if they succeed, Revan will still be (will always be) the mask, and he will be nothing more than her apprentice, who speaks for her instead of himself. He will always be the silent half of their whole.

Saul Karath steps onto the bridge and walks up to the holotable, uniform neat as ever, and there’s a gleam in his eyes, one that would set Malak on edge if he didn’t see it in all his Sith, in Bandon every time he spends any time teaching his own apprentice. “Lord Malak,” the admiral says. “I’ve just gotten a report from one of my spies in the fleet. A Jedi strike team boarded a shuttle that appears to be bound for the  _ Vengeance; _ should we shoot it down?”

Malak pauses. This is the Republic’s trap, then:  _ Jedi, _ sent after Revan. Of course they’re going after Revan - if he died, what would that accomplish? Hardly anything, really. Oh, Revan would be broken up over it, for a little while, would be  _ furious, _ would take that out on the Republic, but it wouldn’t halt her advance (would just encourage it, in fact), it wouldn’t protect them, because in the end Malak is just steady, loyal Alek, and Revan is  _ Revan. _

“No,” he says, one hand clenching into a fist. “She’s the one who named herself the master, let her prove that.”

Karath is smiling. “I wholeheartedly agree, my lord. In fact - this could be an opportunity for us, if you have the ambition to seize it.” His eyes sharpen, and Malak grits his teeth behind the mask, looks back to the projection. He can see what Revan’s doing with their fleet, her strategy, can see the openings she’s deliberately leaving for him to fill, and he turns to one of his officers, barks an order to get their fighters into the battle, to send out their light cruisers, before looking back to Karath.

“This is already opportunity enough,” he says. “We’ll decimate the Republic’s fleet today, and they won’t be able to protect Coruscant. The Republic will fall in months.”

“And Lord Revan will rule the galaxy,” Karath says. Malak forces himself not to react, to continue to stare at the fleet projections, but the words mirror too well the thoughts he’s been fighting for weeks now. Revan will rule the galaxy, and he will be nothing in the face of that. “Her power, her control, will be absolute.”

“How do you think Revan would react if I let her see this conversation?” Malak asks, low, and it’s meant to be a threat, because he knows what Karath is suggesting, knows the  _ ambition _ he means, and coming from anyone other than Revan’s apprentice,  _ that _ is treason.

But Karath just laughs, quietly. “Lord Malak,” he says, “we both know you won’t do that. It would mean admitting to your plans.”

“I don’t  _ have _ plans.” Malak’s fist tightens more and he stares at the vivid blue projection of the  _ Vengeance. _

“No? That would be a shame, given that Lord Revan’s treated you less like an apprentice and more like a tool as of late, given that she’s hardly seemed to grow in power while  _ you, _ my lord, have.” Karath takes a step closer, and in Malak’s peripheral vision his eyes are fever-bright. “Is it not the way of the Sith for the apprentice to turn on the master when the master has outlived her use to him?”

Malak hesitates, for a moment. Revan is his-  _ everything, _ his lover, his best friend, his partner, their relationship isn’t about  _ use. _

Isn’t it?

He hasn’t seen her smile since before he asked for the  _ Leviathan. _ Holding each other curled up at night is as much a habit as it is a relationship. She doesn’t let him see past the mask (and he doesn’t try to) and she tried to kill him and she called him her  _ apprentice, _ like he didn’t hold her fleet together with his bare hands whenever she went off on some reckless crusade during the Mandalorian Wars, like he didn’t stand in a blood-soaked jungle on Dxun and order ten thousand deaths while she played the hero in Iziz, like he didn’t stand at her side against the Jedi Council after Cathar and after Malachor. Like he isn’t every bit her equal.

She counts on his loyalty and his familiarity with her to have her back in every battle, and she doesn’t bother to thank him after. How is that  _ not _ using him? And if she’s the one who started this - and she is, she’s the one who broke them apart, who has always, always led while he followed behind - if she’s the one who used him first, then-

“It’s your right as a Sith Lord to take the power you deserve,” Karath continues, and Malak flexes his hands, grips the edge of the holotable. It makes sense. It makes too much sense. “Lord Revan, as you so aptly said, is the Sith Master - she should know to treat her apprentice better if she wants his loyalty, shouldn’t she?”

Revan has earned his loyalty a thousand times over, when they were Jedi, when they were children and then teenagers and then adults, but when they became Sith, when they wrapped themselves in the Dark consciously for the first time, when they left behind the tombs on Korriban with  _ Darth _ attached to their names - that was a rebirth. The past no longer mattered, a Sith ghost had told them, now that they had taken up the mantle of  _ Sith Lord. _

_ Revan _ earned his loyalty, with her unshaking defense of him and her smile and her fingers tangled in his among the tall grasses.

And  _ Darth Revan _ threw that loyalty away when she named him  _ apprentice _ and drove a lightsaber at his face.

The projections flicker, for a moment, are replaced by a holo of Revan herself, in her black and red robes, the beskar mask she’s chosen as her face (because she couldn’t bear to be human anymore), and Malak takes a deep breath, lifts his mental shields higher and lets his face stay blank as her own mask.  _ “Malak,” _ she says, and there’s hardly any emotion in her voice, even without the vocoder - she’s steady, she’s focused, although he thinks she’s enjoying herself. She always likes the challenge of unexpected battle, and the Republic hasn’t given her much of that lately.  _ “Do you read me?” _

“Loud and clear,” he says, stiffly, and she’s barely waiting for him to answer before she’s continuing.

_ “The Jedi sent a strike team to the  _ Vengeance,” she says, which- hadn’t she already known? Unless Karath’s spies didn’t tell her.  _ “I need to deal with them, you have command.” _

She doesn’t even wait for a response. The holo just flickers out, the fleet projections returning, and a muscle works in Malak’s jaw and he grips the edge of the table tighter. She just  _ assumes _ he’ll take over for her, doesn’t even give him a chance to acknowledge it, and sure he’s her second-in-command, her apprentice, but that doesn’t mean she can just-

“She takes you for granted,” Karath says, and he’s  _ right. _ She’s taken him for granted since long before they were Sith, takes him for granted even though she tried to  _ kill him. _

A surge of anger wells up within him and Malak slams a hand down onto the holotable, snaps, sharply, “Pull the  _ Leviathan _ up even with the  _ Vengeance.” _ Revan is nudging against his mental shields, lightly, questioning, and he shoves her back.  _ Go deal with your strike team, _ he tells her, somehow manages to keep all the bitterness and the hurt and the  _ rage _ from spilling over his shields.

_ It won’t take long, _ she responds, too light, too cheerful, and she has  _ no idea, _ and when did she stop being able to read him just as well as he could read her?  _ Look, this is all the Jedi sent for me, I’m almost insulted, _ and there’s a flash, four knights and the padawan he’d heard so much about, Bastila Shan.

They’ll keep her busy. Karath is right, this is an opportunity, and he’d be a fool not to take advantage of it. He refuses to only ever be known as Revan’s shadow, who never did a single thing on his own. He refuses to be  _ used, _ to be taken for granted. The galaxy will look at him and they  _ will _ see what he is capable of, that he is every bit Revan’s equal, that he can and he  _ will _ win without her help. He doesn’t need Revan, but oh, she needs him.

The bridge is staring at him. Some of them look afraid, some concerned, some- eager, and he wonders if they know what’s going on, if they’ve been expecting this, if they’ve been waiting for it like Bandon has, like his Sith have, like Karath has. “My lord?” one of his officers asks, and Malak whirls, pins them in place with a stare more gold than blue.

“Do it,” he nearly growls, and the mask’s vocoder adds a threatening curl to his voice, and in the moment he  _ likes _ that, likes the way the officer - a younger one who joined up near the end of the first war - flinches back just a little and goes pale.

“Yes, sir,” and they turn, and the order is repeated, and Malak turns and looks out the viewscreen at the  _ Vengeance, _ hanging in space not too far from him. He can almost picture Revan on the bridge, staring down the Jedi, probably even smiling behind that mask. 

For a moment, for just a moment, he wishes he could see that smile.

“You’re making a wise decision, Lord Malak,” Karath says. Malak doesn’t take his eyes off the  _ Vengeance’s _ bridge.

“What are your orders, sir?” another officer, a commander or something like that, asks, and Malak doesn’t look at her.

“All turbolaser batteries, lock onto the  _ Vengeance’s _ bridge,” he says. The weight of his anger and his hurt gives his voice a steady confidence, the same one he’s heard from Revan since she first donned the mask. He hadn’t understood, then, how she could be so  _ steady _ all the time, but now - now he pours everything burning in his chest into his voice until he almost thinks the entire bridge must be able to  _ feel _ it.

Karath is smiling. It’s the same kind of smile he’d heard in Revan’s voice when she’d drawn the Mandalorians into her traps, made her sacrifices and  _ won, _ and that-

Malak  _ hesitates. _ Karath holds his eyes and that smile still curves across his mouth and in the space beyond the  _ Leviathan _ the Republic is fighting back, and he looks like  _ Revan, _ like he planned this, like this was all a trap, and how had Malak forgotten that Saul Karath is, above everything else, motivated by  _ power? _

“Well?” Karath says, silky-smooth. “You know what you have to do, my lord, there’s no turning back now. Hesitation doesn’t become the Dark Lord of the Sith.”

He’s already set this in motion. He’s already given the orders, there will be no way to keep Revan from finding out about this, and she will  _ not _ take it well. And the part of him that loves her is far overshadowed, now, by the part of him that wants to be free from her. But he doesn’t-  _ killing her, _ really? They’ve been more one person than two for  _ two decades, _ and the bond between them is ten times as deep as a training bond - no matter that he’s been keeping it shielded for months, when it snaps it’ll be like half his  _ soul _ tearing away, and  _ I’m always going to be with you, I promise. _

“Lord Malak?” the weapons officer asks.

Malak is not the one who made that promise.  _ Alek _ is, and Revan shattered Alek into a thousand separate pieces and patched them back together into  _ Malak _ when she drug him with her into the tombs of Korriban.

And he is not the one who left first.

“Fire,” he says, and pulls up mental shields as thick as mountains.

There’s a pause. And then, outside the viewscreen, the  _ Vengeance _ erupts into flame, into chunks of twisted durasteel, and even through his shields Malak can  _ feel _ the scorching heat, and it is  _ agony, _ racing through his mind, and there’s one silent  _ scream _ of  _ Alek! _ and he clenches his jaw and freezes himself into stillness and pushes his shields higher, thicker, stronger, until the fire in the Force is nothing more than a blur of warmth, until he can almost, almost pretend it’s Revan’s mind warm and quiet against his (instead of screaming, instead of reaching for him like they’re children again, instead of desperate and drowning).

The  _ Vengeance, _ the pride and the terror of the Republic, is tearing itself into pieces and the Republic fleet has stopped firing and it’s like the entire battlefield has gone as frozen as Malak has, like no one can quite believe it’s  _ happened. _ Like no one can quite believe Malak - steady, loyal Alek, the shadow, the apprentice, the second - would reach for something more than Revan offered him.

(Malak almost can’t believe it himself.)

The Republic reacts first, their scattered fleet leaping into hyperspace - objective accomplished, after all - leaving behind tens of broken starships venting fire and shrapnel and dead bodies, and Malak can’t  _ move, _ can’t breathe, hardly, the frozen stillness the only thing holding him upright.

Oh, Force, what has he  _ done? _

_ I’m sorry, Rev, _ he finds himself thinking, as though she could hear him now, as though it  _ matters, _ because he gave the order and she’s-  _ I’m sorry. _

“All hail Darth Malak, Dark Lord of the Sith,” Saul Karath says, voice ringing out into the bridge’s silence, and it takes Malak too long to realize he’s opened a channel to the entire fleet. “Darth Revan is dead. Darth Malak has acted against his master, in a time-honored Sith tradition, and he has succeeded. By rights, everything that belonged to Revan is now his, including this fleet and this empire. Does anyone object?”

For a long heartbeat there’s nothing, and then the entire bridge crew is coming to their feet, saluting, and he doesn’t know who starts it, but, “All hail Darth Malak,” echoes around him, and Karath is  _ smiling _ again, and it’s all Malak can do to keep himself from shattering in front of them all.

_ I’m going to change the whole galaxy someday, and you’re going to be right next to me, aren’t you? _

_ Don’t be  _ stupid, _ Rev, I’m always going to be with you. I promise. _

_ No matter what happens, we’re always going to be together. Nothing could ever change that. _

Revan is dead. At his own hand, the one who promised he’d never leave her, the one who would’ve torn apart the galaxy for her not so very long ago. Revan is dead, and Malak has killed her, and he thinks he killed a part of himself, too, with that order. Revan is dead, and now, so is Alek.

All hail Darth Malak, indeed.

**Author's Note:**

> yes yes yes i know i should be working on quantus, i'll get there eventually, i got smashed with Alek feels and just. had to write them. i wrote this in one day and didn't edit it so if it's bad i'm sorry i'm having too many feelings. anyway. fuck linkin park, this is all their fault (i love them).
> 
> leave a comment?


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